"Buy 1 for yourself and get the chance to sell your friends and family 5 and get your downline started!" We examine the multi-level marketing industry, where only the people who come up with the ideas make any money, and everybody else is left unhappy, broke, and tired of reading scripts and selling overpriced vitamins and similarly worthless products. Includes Global Prosperity, Pinnacle Quest International, IRS Codebusters, Stratia, and other new Global Prosperity scams.

The interesting bit in this story was the first step, how did the authorities locate a machine hosting a tor hidden service? Depending on the answer, this court case could validate a lot that has been coming out of Snowden's releases.

The interesting bit in this story was the first step, how did the authorities locate a machine hosting a tor hidden service? Depending on the answer, this court case could validate a lot that has been coming out of Snowden's releases.

Bitcoin is also being used as the currency demanded by a particularly nasty bit of malware called CryptoLocker. Evidently it infects computers (Windows, not Apple) primarily by pretending to be a file in an email message. Once in, it quickly encrypts all the files so they are unreadable, and then announces on that computer that unless something like $300 in bitcoin is posted to an account within 3 days the user will never be given the key to open his files.

It appears that the people behind this did an appallingly good job with malware programming; so far no one has come up with cure. Estimates are that more than a quarter million computers have fallen victim and that the evil genius[es] behind CryptoLocker have scooped up many millions of dollars. Their whereabouts is unknown but a guess is Eastern Europe or Russia.

It was reported today that Mt Gox, reputedly Bitcoin's most important business has gone poof, along with about $375M(740,000 bitcoin) in value, about 6% of bitcoin. Value has reportedly dropped about 22% as a result.

The fact that you sincerely and wholeheartedly believe that the “Law of Gravity” is unconstitutional and a violation of your sovereign rights, does not absolve you of adherence to it.

I seem to recall Harvester telling us what a great thing bitcoin was....

"We've been attacked by the intelligent, educated segment of the culture." -- Pastor Ray Mummert, Dover, PA, during an attempt to introduce creationism -- er, "intelligent design", into the Dover Public Schools

Yeah, along with his not having to pay taxes and how wonderful his life was, didn't believe any of that either.

In fairness, this doesn't seem to be against bitcoin so much as just a plain old fashioned case of embezzlement?? maybe, but still points out large and bold one of the inherent weaknesses of all that is bitcoin.

Yet, if I really understand the system, which I don't pretend to, the "missing" bitcoin should still exist out there, just in the thief's pocket, so the aggregate value shouldn't have changed, except for the people who got taken, so I really don't understand the value drop, unless it reflects confidence in the medium????

The fact that you sincerely and wholeheartedly believe that the “Law of Gravity” is unconstitutional and a violation of your sovereign rights, does not absolve you of adherence to it.

Jeffrey, I would suggest you reread what I have written, I think "gone poof, $375M, in the thief's pocket, embezzlement", pretty well sums up what I do get.

What I don't understand, is why if bitcoin is such a "secure" currency, a theft like this would affect it since in theory the "money" is still there. Unless, of course, it isn't all it is cracked up to be???

The fact that you sincerely and wholeheartedly believe that the “Law of Gravity” is unconstitutional and a violation of your sovereign rights, does not absolve you of adherence to it.

The best analogy is to think of it as a bank not an exchange. People deposited coins and had accounts for either withdrawing cash or coins at some point. Essentially they lied both about how many coins they actually had availabe and how much cash they had to cover the deposits.

The currency itself is secure as you point out, the problem is when you try to convert it to cash.

(Reuters) - Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara has sent subpoenas to Mt. Gox, other bitcoin exchanges, and businesses that deal in bitcoin to seek information on how they handled recent cyber attacks, a source familiar with the probe said on Wednesday.

What can you do if you deposited bitcoins at Mt. Gox, which shuttered on Tuesday with little explanation? Probably not much.

It'll be interesting to see if any arrests come of this. Reuters seems to give credence to the theory that MTGox lost it's deposits due to hackers. I'm siding with the cynics on this one, the hacking claim doesn't seem technically plausible and the companies behavior strongly points to a snatch and run.

I would say it is a case of a great deal too little way too late at this point. My understanding was that MtGox was operating out of Japan, so I don't see how the US Attorney thinks he is going to get anything out of any of them. I wasn't aware of any of the bitcoin exchanges operating within US jurisdiction to begin with, so this does raise a number of questions to me.

This is the first I have heard of the "hacker" scenario, and I have a hard time with that for a variety of reasons, not the least of which, is that this looks ever so much more like a good old fashioned embezzlement by someone on the inside.

The fact that you sincerely and wholeheartedly believe that the “Law of Gravity” is unconstitutional and a violation of your sovereign rights, does not absolve you of adherence to it.

Flexcoin, a site that described itself as the “world’s first bitcoin bank,” has closed after it got hacked and all of the bitcoins it had placed in online storage were stolen, the site recently announced.

Flexcoin was attacked and robbed March 2 of all coins in its “hot wallet”—a term that refers to bitcoin online storage—the site said in an announcement posted to its homepage. The attacker made off with 896 bitcoins, which at current prices across several exchanges would amount to roughly $600,000.

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Flexcoin directs affected users to its terms of service. According to that document, Flexcoin transactions were carried out using HTTPS encryption but the company “is not responsible for insuring any bitcoins stored in the Flexcoin system.”

That last statement sorta jumps out at you. I mean would you deposit real money in a bank that refused to be responsible for returning that money to you?